


Doctor Who - Colepaldi RPF - Does it need saying?

by Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis (Samstown4077)



Series: Colepaldi Collection [61]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who RPF
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Friendship, Humour, Love, RPF, Romance, Suppressed Feelings, christmas special 2017, real person fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-18 22:39:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13109973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samstown4077/pseuds/Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis
Summary: Peter asks Steven to rewrite one of his last scenes as 12. Later he tells Jenna what it was about. A kiss that should have happened, but now never will. He has his reasons and she has questions. --- One last RPF for the ending era of 12 and Clara Oswald





	Doctor Who - Colepaldi RPF - Does it need saying?

**Author's Note:**

> After writing 60 Colepaldi RPF I did say I stop, let go of it, and I kept my promise for two years. But I had given a vague promise, I would open the pandora's box once more in case Jenna Coleman would come back to DW for Peter's last episode. The thing is I have no clue if this will happen, as I have written this story on December 23, and it's resting in my drafts so it can be posted on Dec 27th.  
> The only thing I have are rumors and the confidence that Moffat won't screw this up by not making Clara show up. This story is based on a post on Instagram where I read, that Peter asked Moffat to rewrite one of his last scenes. He did and I can't tell you what it was about, but instantly I had this idea pop up in my head, and so I sat down and wrote this story.  
> And it was like riding a bicycle again, aside not having written Colepaldi for 2 years (oh and yes I thought about writing at least once a month) I was back at it in an instance. 
> 
> It's not my best story, but I am happy with it. One last trip into this friendship with a touch of humor, sadness, romance, sappyness and all the suppressed feelings you have been waiting for. About a kiss, that never happened (I am writing this before the special, and I am sorry to say, I wish for one, I actually need one, but I am certain there will be none) because when I started writing RPF everybody asked me to write a kiss. And because I never write the stories you want, only the one you need, this is the story about the kiss that never happened.

 

The script reached Peter with the morning express mail, on a Saturday. Walking back from the door, he ripped the envelope open, taking the stack of papers out. His name as watermark printed on every single page — the usual business. In the corner, written in the familiar handwriting, a message: “Let me know what you think.” 

Steven Moffat was no man for sentimentality. No long message about how dramatic or funny or critical this script would be, just a simple “Let me know what you think.” Peter knew it meant so much more. A scotsman understands another.

He was alone at that day, and so he put the kettle on and started reading this one last episode for the Twelfth Doctor on the sofa of his living room. It was July, but Christmas was already around the corner.

And it was wonderful. Fantastic. Brilliant. Fucking genius. He knew writers who needed a very good day to bring something just only close like this script down onto paper. Moffat was able to write something half brilliant as this on a bad day, but he had overtopped himself, because Peter not only liked what he just had read, he loved it. It moved him.

With him closing the bunch of paper, he then realized, that this was it. The end. The finish line. The regeneration he always knew would come but thought he never take voluntarily and not that early. But time had come, telling him it was the right moment to move on. Doctor Who was not only the adventure of a lifetime, it was also ten months 24/7. He was about to become 60. He wasn’t too old to play the Doctor; he was simply getting old.

“Shite,” it slipped him with a smirk, remembering this mysterious and infamous lifeline mark. Then he opened the script once more, rereading it, right from the beginning. Because that was, what a Peter Capaldi did and because he wanted too. Steven was that sort of writer, where one sometimes missed a detail when one didn’t read and watch twice. Important details, little vibes, and Peter knew about it.

He used to always write little remarks down into the script, so he wouldn’t forget to ask him about this or that. Bring in some ideas. Even critic. Moffat never was pleased when Peter didn’t point out at least one bit that wasn’t as good as it should be. It was sort of a game between him and Steven.

But even after the second turn, Peter wasn’t able to tell this script wasn’t good. A fine Christmas Special 2017.

Except… He turned back to the regeneration scene. The last moments of Twelve. Reading it again, he felt a certain unease with it. And it wasn’t about him giving up this job, this dream of his. No, of course, he knew what it was, what bugged him, but he was too scared to place the finger on it.

Instead, he flipped back a few pages, to the one scene he had waited for since two years. He read the name of Clara Oswald and exhaled a deep taken breath of air, and for a moment he believed it was the one he had taken all those years ago when she had left.

Not that he had told anyone that he wanted to have this scene because there was no way around it and Steven knew that too. Leaving without seeing Clara Oswald again, never had been an option. Not for any of the three.

Peter smiled softly, flashed with gentle memories before remembering the scene in a couple of lines. The pages flipped through his fingers, back to the scene. Another huff escaped him, this time more vigorous. Unpleased. It was still there; he couldn’t help it. _This_ something.

Too shy to admit it, he hoverd with the pen over the scene for a bit and in a streak of oppressiveness that was just too much for the moment he shoved the script away and went to refill his cup of tea.

After that, he turned on the telly,  the silence just too loud, zapping senseless through the program. Then his phone went off, and he talked a bit with his daughter and later his wife. They both had been an incredible support over the last couple of months. They knew it was necessary but hard for him to let go of the show. His show. The one place he sometimes seemed completely happy.

Not that he wasn’t happy anywhere else, but when he was in the Tardis, running around the console, pressing those buttons, flicking those levers, there was some little spot deep down in his heart that gave him a sort of glow. Spread a smile on his face, that was different. Not that anyone noticed, except Peter himself, his wife and … no, there was probably no one else.

There were days when he discussed with the directors of the show about a scene. Then he sat down on the staircase of the Tardis, without even noticing that he searched comfort in this particular environment. Rachel (Talalay) seemed there the only one who knew how much he savored the place. His happy place.

It was true. The Tardis was his happy place, and he had to let go.

Maybe they would let him come back here and there, he snickered. They probably would, and he would go down into history as the oddest of the odd.

And then he called Steven because it was about time, and as usual, it was short at hand, because filming would start very soon. The man, when would oblige, had to work some magic, and Peter wanted to give him the time to magic happen — once again.

It was a professional phone call, with Peter expressing unease with one of his last moments as the Doctor. He had never asked Steven before, but if he were able to rewrite it, he would be very grateful. Steven hesitated not one moment and agreed. When Peter had ended the call, it was clear to him, that Steven had expected such call.

And so Steven Moffat rewrote the scene in just one night. Sounds easy, but Peter was sure it wasn’t, and he thanked him once again shortly before the read through the next day with Pearl (Mackie), Mark (Gatiss) and the others.

Before they started, Peter glanced around the table, while everyone was busy getting ready by getting out snacks, tea or whatever one needed, he leaned back and glanced at the stool beside him. It was empty — Pearl had gone for a wander for a moment. It used to be different once. He gave it a sigh, what else he could do?

Jenna hadn’t been able to come as being busy with filming Victoria, but they had phoned about the script. They often phoned, texting also. He was getting good with emojis by now — always in a happy mood, when they did an update, and he could send her a couple of new ones. She laughed at him then, but it made him happy, and then he threw a couple more at her.

The read through ended, everybody was happy and delighted, and a little bit sad. No one knew that Steven had changed the script in favour for Peter, and when he wouldn’t tell in an interview a bit later, no one ever would have found out. Not that they ever would tell what it had been about.

And then the story happened as it usually happened when it was time for a Christmas Special and a regeneration. A lot of snow. A lot of Doctor(s). Adventures. An awful lot of running, and the inevitable. The cry, the sadness. His monologue about pears, hate, love and somehow about Clara , the yellow light. The end.

The shock, the new and the surprise was only reserved for the viewer, but not for him. The scene with Jodie (Whitaker) would be filmed later this year.

Jenna had tears in her eyes, real ones, and he knew he had too. She had set foot on the set only shortly before they filmed their scenes together. They just needed ten seconds; then they were back into their old routines. Doing crappy jokes, teasing each other and for a second he regrets quitting Doctor Who, because now, in this glimpse of time, he wanted nothing more as grab her hand and run around the universe.

Looking at her with this sort of smile that was only reserved for her, he knew she wanted too.  

A couple of hours ago she had approached him, “Daft old man,” his back had been on her while reading through his notes, lost in thought. When he heard her voice, his head came up, a quiver going through his body. Like somebody had put in new batteries, and then he swirled around. To hell with regeneration, it crossed his mind.

Sometimes he forgot how small she was without her box, and Jenna read his thoughts, “I told you I’m not going anywhere,” and then she threw herself against him into a hug, and he bent, pressing a kiss onto her temple as he used to.

She had come to the set, brought in with a cab. Everybody on set busy like bees, and she had slowly stepped foot back onto the holy ground, watching Peter reading his notes. She always had enjoyed watching him. The way he ruffled his hair sometimes, or how he bit his thumb. His lanky figure stepping from one foot to the other. Watching Peter Capaldi work was like witnessing a supernova, she once told a friend.  And so she decided to give herself this few seconds to watch him again because they maybe never would work together again — but who knows? Then the anticipation was all too much, and she walked up the aisle, making herself known.

After the filming Jenna wished she would have made more mistakes, hence more takes, because now, after witnessing Peter Capaldi regenerate the clock was up. Nevertheless, she was grateful for the times they had, and that she had been allowed to watch his last scenes. The most beautiful supernova burning out.

Looking back at it, she couldn’t tell how they ended up at the console all alone. Maybe the team had sensed, that companion and Doctor needed a bit time alone. That not everything had been said yet.

A strange chit-chat arouses between them, so very unusual. Peter stammered a bit, talked even about the weather at one point, then he suddenly broke into a chuckle, “Remember when Nick Frost locked us in on the set, overnight?”

“Who could ever forget that?” she laughed and added, “Last Christmas.”

“Because every year is Last Christmas,” Peter rubbed his knuckles against his mouth and Jenna sensed there was something he wanted get off his chest, and he hadn’t decided to come out with it or not. Then she saw him look around in the room, a sort of smile on his face.

“You always have this gleam in your eyes, when you are here, you know that?” she asked and saw him turn back to her with wide open eyes. “You are glowing from within. Well, you actually look like always when you are happy, but I think when you are here in the TARDIS, then …”

Three people then, he noted, and it made him spill the beans, “We spent a lot of time here, you were my pal, my dear companion, my dearest friend.”

Jenna internally prepared for Peter telling her he was about to die, because that was the only reason he would get that sappy. He read her mind, “No, I am not going to die!”

“What then?”

He inhaled and then gave his speech the fastest drift he was able to, “I am sure you know, that Steven sent the script over to me when finished. And of course I read it at least twice - like twice upon a time - haha, anyway, there was one scene I couldn’t get through with it and therefore I asked him to rewrite it and he did.”

Jenna looked at him with small eyes, trying to dissect the problem, “So?”

Again he inhaled, “Oh, yes, I should mention that there had been a kissing scene right before I regenerate, between Clara and the Doctor, that means there would have been a kiss between you and me, and I asked Steven to write it out. And he did, and I didn’t tell you before because I knew you would be asking me too many questions and yeah… I thought you should know. Now.”

“What? Say again!”

Peter huffed, this didn’t go how he expected it to go. Like it was nothing. “There was a kiss in the scenes between you and me and I asked Steven to take it out.”

“You.. you asked him to…, “ she wanted to say “take the kiss out”, but did get afraid of her own courage, “to change it? Why?”

Peter suddenly hobbelt from one leg to the other. Something he had done back at the time when he had ruined his knee. He was nervous. Bloody nervous, but he tried to be a professional, be an actor and waved it away with a grimasse, which betrayed him to her, “Oh, you know…”

Jenna wouldn’t take that as an answer, he could tell by the way she looked at him. With her Clara Oswald teacher face, arms crossed in front of her, about to push her hands into her waist, arms akimbo.

Peter counted down in silence from five, and when he reached two, her arms where akimbo and he so screwed.

“I know what?” she rose an eyebrow and he balanced onto his other foot.

This could have been easily a scene between Clara and the Doctor, but it wasn’t. This was more real. This was serious.

“You are angry,” he proposed.

About to blurt out a yes, she stopped herself while already leaning forward because —  and that was hard to admit, she wasn’t. A few seconds of thoughts went by, and she could read in Peter’s face that it confused him. “No, I am not angry. Just…,” her hands wavered gently in the air.

Like Peter already had realised minutes ago where this would lead, she had needed a little longer, now damning herself. It was too late to call the thing off, to retreat and do as if there was nothing about it. Because there was something about it. Since a very long time and this time they had to face the facts.

“Is this about of you telling me there would be no romance?” this time it was Jenna who proposed and Peter should have taken it, but he hesitated too long before saying, “Yes.”

“Liar.”

“Liar,” he accepted. “I asked to change the scene because…,” again there was this feeling he had back when reading the script. The one certain feeling he did not want to place a finger on because it would simply hurt. “Because they would have known.”

The suggested idea trickled slowly into Jenna’s understanding mind, “known what?”

Peter refused to answer. Only biting his left thumb, he raised an eyebrow. It would help because Jenna could read him like a book, and indeed it hit her. Her eyes went wide with the understanding. Broader as usual, and Peter had to suppress a laugh. 

She should let go of it then, she told herself, but there was something that didn’t allow her. This right now, _this_ \- at this moment she couldn’t let go of _this_. Because this was them, in the TARDIS, their last time. This was their last call, and either it would be said now or never. 

The chances for both option where, of course, uneven.

She stepped forward, repeating softly “they would have known what?”

Peter moved a little to the side, closer to the console, his long fingers first briefly touching the lever he always loved to pull and push, before grabbing it wholeheartedly. He was ready to take off, with Jenna. All in time and space. Then he didn't have to say it, didn't have to answer to anyone.

With force he pushed it up so hard, they both jumped a little. They noticed the darn thing didn’t move in any form. It was a prop in the end. Life excluded special effects.

Peter hadn’t taken away his hand from the lever, and Jenna stepped up, her tiny hand coming over his, “They would have know what?” she asked again, pressed but a whisper.

He evaluated his possibilities. Swallowing hard, his thumb brushed over her fingertips, before he turned his head, giving her an intense look, “Jenna… does it need saying?” God christ, he was Scottish after all. No sentimentalities! He couldn’t, not even for her. Nothing new, just the words that were already written. _That_ was something to use!

They both, at the same time, took the hand away from the lever and each other, and Jenna swayed between understanding and a rage, “Argh!” it escaped her, giving the situation something comically. Peter’s eyebrows rose in surprise, unsure what would follow.

“I am not fucking Billy Piper and you are not fucking Tennant!” she ranted. There was a whiff of despair.

“I bloody well know,” Peter went up to her, after she had stepped away. “Not sure if I can call that being lucky or not,” he then mused, trying to lighten her mood.

It did. “There should have been a kiss, between you and me-”

“-Betweeen Clara and the Doctor!” he interrupted.

“Oy, shut up!” she rose a finger, but knew it was something he had to say, because it had been in him since the beginning. This all “no romance” nonsense. “A kiss! And you not wanted to go the mile because you think they would have seen.”

“Yes.”

“It was you, who just said, it would have been a kiss between Clara and the Doctor? So why the fuss?” she wanted to get behind his logic and with every second she realised she was getting closer because he was getting more uneasy with the situation.

The problem with Jenna was, Peter thought, that she was too smart for all this. “The Doctor loves Clara, and Clara loves the Doctor, and this doesn’t need saying, this doesn’t need showing because they know anyway! Right from the beginning, and that is fine for me. It would have been easy to kiss you in front of the camera, but then…” he pointed at himself and Jenna’s cleverness settled in.

The whole scenario played out in front of her. Him sitting at home, reading the script fresh out of the pen by Steven. Being all joyful and happy and excited. Reading it again, because Peter was like that only to get uneasy with the written kiss. It had never been about the others knowing too much.

“It’s about admitting, isn’t it? Admitting something to yourself that has nagged you way too long at the back of your head and heart.” It was all the same with her. 

This woman, he smiled with this one particular sad expression at her. How often had she defeated him? Had taken his heart, to hold it in her hands, staring at it in wonder? How he sometimes wished he had two of it. There wasn’t a day she didn’t surprise him. Him, the idiot, the older, and therefore shouldn't he be the clever one? But she was, the clever, the more romantic, the one that - at the end of the day - always brought his heart back. Knowing he was owed better.

“Oh! Jenna… Louise Coleman, I…,” he looked around, waiting for the imaginary planet he used, to burn up. Pictures fading, but nothing happened. “I really… could kiss you right now!”

She huffed, “You had your chance you daft old man.”

“I can ask them to reshoot,” he offered. “They’d do that for me. I am the Doctor.”

“They probably would,” Jenna smiled walking up to him, offering a hug. “Maybe one day, we’ll come back to this place. Who knows?”

He held her tight, “Maybe. One day. They probably have then redecorated and…” he let go of her, not without giving her the kiss on the temple again a tad too long this time.

“...we won’t like it,” they said in unism, looking around the interior, before bursting into a laugh.

“I got to go, catch my flight,” she announced. “I call you, okay?”

“Yes, mam,” he mock saluted, “and I’ll send you new emojis, I think they did an update.”

“Of course you will.”

Before she went down the aisle one last time, she turned, watching Peter still standing by the console, watching her leave — once more. There Jenna knew this was the moment. There last christmas and so she walked two steps back, one hand on the rail.

“You know what! It fucking does need saying!”

Peter glanced at her expectantly.

“Peter Dougan Capaldi, I-”

With a bang the power shut off and with it all the lights, and after a second of silence, Peter was about to tell Jenna that she just had deleted the universe, when in the next half second everything went back to life again, with another bang. Wheezing and light spinning.

The doors went open and a couple of crewmembers and stagehands came in talking and suddenly filling the TARDIS with busyness.

Peter’s and Jenna’s eyes met, and she rolled her eyes, like she wanted to say “why do I even bother?”

They both smiled wide, knowingly.

Then she left and Peter kept looking around the room. Remembering all those moments. Him being the 12th Doctor. Her being Clara Oswald. Whouffaldi.

Yes, It had been the best ride he ever had. Then his phone vibrated and he took it out. A message. Just one emoji.

A blue heart.

Yes, this was their last Christmas, this was him regenerating and it had been the best of times — with her, in his happy place.

 

End.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I have to admit I had expected a better Christmas Special, something more epic, so it's basically a lie to let Peter think this script was genuis because in my opinion it wasn't but now it's too late to rewrite it. Bare in mind I've written this story two days before with out reading ANY spoiler. 
> 
> Don't expect another story, but please leave me a comment or a kudo or both. I'd appreciate it!
> 
> Thanks for coming back to the RPF, for the read. Enjoy your holidays!


End file.
